Help - mini PCIe wireless card MT7916 not listed

[helios]

I need a bit of assistance,

I have, I think, a cwwk mini computer x86 i7-1165G7 TigerLake and I am installing a MT796N AW7916-NPD AX300 into the mini-PCIe but for some reason it is not listed at all...

I have tried:

• Openwrt 23.05.4 Kernel 5.15
• Openwrt Snapshot 6.6.45-1 Kernel 6.6
• Openwrt Snapshot 6.6.48-1 Kernel 6.6
• Ubuntu 22.04.4

and all have the same lspci output. See below.

What am I missing?
This post says the mni-PCIe might not be connected?

Working mini pci-e Wireless card not detected on 3 different mini routers issue

My work around was to get an: Heayzoki Mini PCIE to M.2 (NGFF) Key M Adapter, Adapter Card Mini PCIE to NGFF(M.2) Key M Network Converter for Win10/8/7/2000/ for Linux this one here Looks like this: [71fOO27JJDL.AC_SL1500] Was very hard to search on aliexpress, amazon and ebay, since you end up with several different slots or the smaller E wireless keys, so triple check its the right connections for your nvme port and that it supports mini pci-e wireless cards. [adaptor] I cut the end ta…

root@OpenWrt:~# lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 11th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:9a14] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
lspci: Unable to load libkmod resources: error -2
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:9a49] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:2212]
	Kernel driver in use: i915
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 11th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller [8086:9a09] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:0d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 USB Controller [8086:9a13] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 xHCI Host Controller [8086:a0ed] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:14.2 RAM memory [0500]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Shared SRAM [8086:a0ef] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #0 [8086:a0e8] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:15.2 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #2 [8086:a0ea] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:15.3 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #3 [8086:a0eb] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Management Engine Interface [8086:a0e0] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:17.0 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP SATA Controller [8086:a0d3] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:19.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #4 [8086:a0c5] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:19.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #5 [8086:a0c6] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 [8086:a0bc] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tigerlake PCH-LP PCI Express Root Port #6 [8086:a0bd] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.6 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP PCI Express Root Port #7 [8086:a0be] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.7 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP PCI Express Root Port #8 [8086:a0bf] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP PCI Express Root Port #9 [8086:a0b0] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP PCI Express Root Port #10 [8086:a0b1] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1e.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO UART Controller #0 [8086:a0a8] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:1e.3 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Serial IO SPI Controller #1 [8086:a0ab] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP LPC Controller [8086:a082] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller [8086:a0c8] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:3000]
00:1f.4 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP SMBus Controller [8086:a0a3] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP SPI Controller [8086:a0a4] (rev 20)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7270]
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller [0108]: Sandisk Corp SanDisk Ultra 3D / WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD [15b7:5009] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Sandisk Corp WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD [15b7:5009]
	Kernel driver in use: nvme
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc
06:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V [8086:15f3] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0000]
	Kernel driver in use: igc

** Edit: Here Bios screenshot

[efahl]

Just a guess, but maybe it needs the firmware to come up? It seems weird that it's not detected on the pci bus, even without it, but might be worth a try.

$ opkg update
$ opkg install kmod-mt7916-firmware

[Ieo]

Check in BIOS, possibly that the mini pcie slot is disabled.

[helios]

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried this, by installing kmod and also by building the firmware into the image using firmware selector... so far noting. I understand firmware is to use what it is already listed on lspci but since it is not even listed I am out of luck...

[helios]

I reseted bios back to defaults but still nothing... there are lots and lots of options on those cwwk mini pcs BIOS and not even sure where to look. Trying to contact cwwk for more clues...

[efahl]

I'm betting that @leo is onto it, the BIOS is probably disabling the device port. That's the only real explanation for the device not enumerating properly.

You might want to poke around/ask on https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/topton-jasper-lake-quad-i225v-mini-pc-report.36699/ I think at least a couple of the i7 boxes were discussed there (and maybe on STH's N100 thread, https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/cwwk-topton-nxxx-quad-nic-router.39685/).

I followed those back when I got my N5105, but haven't paid much attention for like a year now, but don't let the model numbers in the titles fool you, the threads wander all over the router-ish mini-PC spectrum.

[fakemanhk]

Try booting with normal Linux distro to see if it can be detected and used, if it's still not working then it's not the issue of OS.

[helios]

I have posted some screenshots of BIOS. Could you see any clues there? I am not sure how interpret those options...
Thank you in advance.

[helios]

I did boot into Ubuntu live as well as I noted it on my initial post but no luck... card it is not listed... Any ideas?

[fakemanhk]

Then this is hardware related, not really OS issue.

[helios]

I've got an answer from cwwk manufacturer and they have replied about the mini-PCIe port:

"Hello, this only supports msata"

Not sure how to interpret this...

Edit: It seems like manufacturer is backtracking their answer since board website actually advertise as "1x Mini PCle". Their new answer is:

This is a Wi-Fi connection

This gives some hope.

[frollic]

Dude, don't cross post, you already received an answer in the other thread, where you asked the same thing.

[helios]

I have ordered an adapter like this one and I will revert back.

*update: cwwk has confirmed that the mini computer x86 i7-1165G7 TigerLake is indeed PCIe USB only.

[helios]

Ok... so it is confirmed, mini-PCIe port is it only for USB mini-PCIe cards.

After buying and installing this my card finally shows up on lspci -nnk

...
01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: MEDIATEK Corp. Device [14c3:7906]
        Subsystem: MEDIATEK Corp. Device [14c3:7906]
        Kernel driver in use: mt7915e
        Kernel modules: mt7915e
...

Thank you all but @frollic for the help